Please give a traceable link to where Goenka-ji said this. This will help us understand exactly what he said, and the context he said it in.

Not sleeping on soft and luxurious beds is part of keeping the Eight Precepts, which many of us undertake monthly and on Retreats.

8. Uccasayana-mahasayana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami I undertake the precept to refrain from lying on a high or luxurious sleeping place. (from Anguttara Nikaya 8.41)

with mettaChris

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

There are seven bojjhaṅgas (factors of enlightenment) that have to be developed to reach the final goal of full liberation. They are: 1. sati (awareness); 2. dhamma-vicaya (investigation of Dhamma); 3. viriya (effort); 4. pīti (rapture); 5. passaddhi (tranquillity); 6. samādhi (concentration, absorption) and 7. upekkhā (equanimity).

villkorkarma wrote:I dont find It now, but there is on the coursescripts for old students sleeep on a simple madrass.goenka said, imagine a mind that doesnt want to feel good.

This is not right.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

I believe the madrass is preffered because it keeps one from becoming attached to sensual pleasures.Besides, its better for the back, discourages slothful lounging in the morning and requires less money time and effort to maintain.

The madrass is useful in that it replaces a high luxorius bed ( which is an unnecessary sensual pleasure).a more positive state of mind is achieved by the abandoning of sensual pleasures ( comfy bed ). These sensual pleasures only lead to craving, grasping, and attachment.The cessation of craving, grasping and attachment results in joy and enlightenment.

Okey better with mattrass.. how is it with have loud and screaming neighbours around you is that better then having a quiet home? and is it better to have bitter colours on the wall or have happy colurs like yellow??

Joy or rapture enlightenment factor is mental. For an experience meditator sleeping on a simple uncomfortable bed would only be bodily discomfort or pain but it would not effect his mental joy or rapture. Like if someone was to sit and make great effort and reached jhana he would feel bodily pain but joy or rapture would not be effected by that bodily pain.

Last edited by Strive on Fri Jan 28, 2011 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Faith is here a man's best treasure;Dhamma practised well brings happiness;Truth is really the sweetest of tastes;One living by wisdom they say lives best."--Bhikkhu Bodhi's Samyutta Nikaya, Sagathavagga verse 853

what is best for the mind? to feel coldness or just being normally warm?on shaman in the book shaman healing says that pain like in coldness put a market negative in the chakras and chakras is just a part of the mind?how does the other parts of the mind react to coldnessness? (the opposite to heat)